Today’s Horse Facts: My First Horse

Today’s Horse Facts: My First Horse

I look back with fond memories on the many horses I owned for about a twenty-year period. I miss those days and consider my horses as lost but not forgotten best friends.

In this social networking world in which we now live, I really enjoy visiting other horse facts blogs, whose bloggers have shared memorable moments with their equines. So I thought I’d share some of my horsie experiences from long ago. So let’s ride back in time to my very first horse.

Moon Doggie: My First Horse

Moon Doggie came to me quite by accident. My hubby and I had been married just a short time and had moved to a rural area in central PA where I started teaching third grade and he worked in the accounting department of a state-run special needs facility.

We were renting from a retired man, Bucky, who was kind enough to already being sharing his home with my widowed aunt and her teenage son. He had enough room in his big house to accommodate hubby and me, too, while we built a ranch-style home on four acres of land about a quarter of a mile away. For practically nothing, Bucky rented us a bedroom, and we all shared the rest of his house together.

On a whim, Bucky bought a handsome pinto Welsh Pony gelding for his one granddaughter for her birthday. I say he bought it on a whim because he didn’t have a barn for the horse and neither did his granddaughter. I remember the day the horse was delivered in Bucky’s parking lot. Bucky took the horse by its bridle and twenty-foot rope and staked it out in his small yard. All he had to house the horse was his garage, which he used all the time to park his car.

When Bucky’s daughter and granddaughter came to get the “surprise” present, Bucky’s daughter was appalled. “Dad, we can’t take that horse. We have no place to keep it.”

Can’t you keep it in the garage?”

“No way,” she said. “Ken (her hubby) will never agree to giving up his garage for a horse.”

Although the granddaughter was thrilled with the horse, her heart was also broken because Bucky’s daughter insisted that the animal be returned.

Of course, yours truly, being horse crazy since I knew what a horse was, was not about to let a horse, and such a beautiful little horse just right for my size, slip through my fingers.

My hubby and I had a close friend, Bob, who lived several miles away and had built a small shed and fenced-in pasture for his son’s horse but which was unoccupied at the time. Bob agreed not only to keep the horse at his place temporarily, but he also offered to help my hubby erect a small red barn and fence in a pasture on our four acres of property where our home was being built. In about a month, the job was done and my Moon Doggie moved into his new barn about the same time hubby and I moved into our new house.

Moon Doggie was a sweet little horse, and I can’t remember him having any bad habits at all. He loved apples, which he received frequently. The only negative about him was he had that short pony trot which made one’s rear end an object of soreness if you trotted Moon Doggie any length of time instead of walking him. I also can’t remember why I ever sold him other than I wanted to get a bigger horse with a smoother second gear.

Moon Doggie was safe to ride bareback

The years that followed brought many new horses to the Hubler home, including several Tennessee Walkers with much, much smoother gaits, but it all started with a little Welsh Pony with a big heart named Moon Doggie.

One thought on “Today’s Horse Facts: My First Horse”

My wonderful mother sent me your link!! I am an avid horse lover and reader myself. I have one half crazy quarter horse and another quarter horse who is way to smart for his own good. She said she met you at the Montrose Writers confrence. I will be following your blog and I can’t wait to hear more about your horses!

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Marsha Hubler

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